Rachmaninov: 24 Preludes: Steven Osborne

Thursday 30 April 2009 19.01 EDT
First published on Thursday 30 April 2009 19.01 EDT

Though Rachmaninov's 24 preludes might seem to make a satisfyingly round number in musical terms, and each contains a piece in each of the major and minor keys, the set was never conceived so systematically. The most famous of them, in C sharp minor, had been part of Rachmaninov's Op 3 set of piano pieces; in the early 1900s, he composed 10 more as his Op 23, and finally, in 1910, decided to make a proper job of it all by producing another 13 for the remaining keys, which were published as Op 32. Steven Osborne preserves that chronology in his performance, beginning with the C sharp minor and following it with Op 23 and then Op 32, so that the development of Rachmaninov's piano writing and his enrichment of its harmonic language seems totally natural. These are wonderfully natural performances: the best on disc since Vladimir Ashkenazy's set from the 1970s, with Osborne always alert to the variegated surfaces of the music, yet mindful of the deeper currents that run beneath. His sound is perfectly judged, never overbearing in even the heftiest passages, and translucent enough to allow the inner lines, which often in Rachmaninov have an expressive life all their own, to be heard. A lovely disc.